Originally Posted by
gsoltso
Sorry for the late response, missed this one earlier.
No, neither you nor I know what is in the mind of any other TSO. However, I can state that I have not seen TSOs discussing "searching for drugs" (or any format thereof - with the exception of some TSOs indicating that they hoped there were no drugs in a bag because of the extra paperwork involved, which is a common situation in many jobs).
In many situations, even a person with a lack of ethics will defer to self preservation in a case where they think something other than WEI may be what they are looking at. TSA has expressly published that we are not to look specifically for drugs, however if we find them we contact the STSO (who then contacts the LEOs). Anything outside of that can expose a TSO to punitive action, which is universally bad.
Would you expect screeners to discuss with each other how they were going to do illegal searches?
I'm sure that TSA has all kinds of directives and policies but did that stop the guy up in Denver from sexually assaulting male travelers during screening? I'm sure doing what he was doing was against some TSA rule, and I would bet he didn't discuss it with very many screeners either but the ones he did discuss it with are as corrupt as he is.